Thursday, October 16, 2003

Klop Campaign Chugs Onward, Upward

Uphill, more like. It's tough enough to run as a Republican in a district that tends to vote about 80% Democrat, but like trying to turn a lump of coal into a diamond for a Libertarian to run and win in such a district. And yet, Brad Klopfenstein chugs on.

Tonight, members of the campaign team gathered to sift through the list of registered voters in order to find citizens who might be inclined to vote for Brad over the slated Democrat. We stuffed brochures and fridge magnets into envelopes for tomorrow's mail. Over the next few weeks, Brad and the team will continue to knock on doors throughout the district, and to visit neighborhood associations and churches.

Brad has been on hand to monitor the pathetic, money-wasting, time-wasting ballot dispute between Democrats and Republicans, in order to protect the status of Libertarians on the ballot. (Click this link for his letter to the Indy Star some three weeks ago.) Out of his constant attendance, he has gained greater respect with the local news media, earning quotes in Star articles and a positive feature on a recent Fox 59 broadcast. (Click this link to the LPIN website, and then click the link to the broadcast.)

He is doing so much right, and deserves to get so much more in return, but we will probably have to take solace in achieving secondary objectives after the election. He wants to win all of the precincts in his home district, and stands a good chance of doing so. He wants to gather more votes than the Republican candidate, and almost certainly will. He wants to win some of the precincts outside his home district, and should take a handful. He wants to win converts to the LPIN, and certainly will do this too. This is the ground work Democrats have done over the past 20 or so years, and it has served them well, converting a Republican city into a Democratic one.

For me, the most frustrating thing is knowing that Brad's main opponent, Democrat Patrice Abduallah, is doing next to nothing. He's mailing it in, in his own way, sitting back patiently, trying to give us no ammunition, banking on the voting trends of the district to take care of business for him. It's frustrating to be able to predict that he is probably using a winning strategy.

It's frustrating to know that so many citizens will be happier to vote for a Democrat who sees fit not to campaign hard before considering a vote for a Libertarian who does, but those are the results of Democrats earning the votes over years. But the lesson is that the work must be done in order to put Libertarian candidates in the same position 20 or so years from today.